


Google Fu

by centreoftheselights



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Characters Are in Fandom, Characters Reading Fanfic, F/F, Fandom, Online Friendship, supernatural books
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-20
Updated: 2013-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-22 20:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/917715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/centreoftheselights/pseuds/centreoftheselights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie goes digging for more information about Sam and Dean. She discovers the Supernatural fandom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Google Fu

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [on Tumblr]().
> 
> Requested by Tumblr user oh-look-a-blibbering-humdinger.

It all starts with a Google search.

Charlie doesn’t think there will be any harm in it. The Leviathan are long gone, and if she wants to find out about hunting, she has to start somewhere, doesn’t she?

"Sam and Dean Winchester." 172,000 hits.

The first few results are news articles - it seems the brothers haven’t always been the best at flying below the radar, although at least the latest reports claim they died six months before meeting her. But on page 3, she strikes gold.

The Supernatural fandom isn’t one she’s encountered before, but she’s spent enough time on Tumblr to recognise some impressive fanwank when she sees it. A cult classic in the making, highly dedicated fanbase, then tragically cut short by a bankrupt publisher. And that’s only where the story _begins._

About a year after the last book comes out, morethanbrothers.net posts what they claim is the unpublished sequel to No Rest For The Wicked. Over the next year, the site releases another 40 or so stories, ending in the highly controversial Swan Song, in which Sam goes to Hell, Dean retires permanently, and the author breaks the fourth wall to complain about how difficult it is to satisfy their fanbase.

Arguments abound, especially after the rumour appears that samlicker81 hooked up with Carver Edlund at a recent con.   
Are the stories fanfic or a continuation of canon? Is the angel mytharc contrived or inspired? And is the fic’s OC Castiel terrible for being a blatant Deus Ex Machina, or for being a blatant Relationship Sue with Dean?

The only thing all parties can agree on is that it was in poor taste to give Sam and Dean the same surname as a pair of serial killers who died recently in police custody, no matter how similar the circumstances were to Jus In Bello.

That’s the point when Charlie starts to devour the archive.

The story sounds real, and it explains a lot of things, but there are still pretty big gaps in the narrative - the obvious one being what happened in the two years between Swan Song going live and Sam and Dean showing up at her apartment.

Unfortunately, the person to ask is samlicker81, and she left the fandom more than a year ago. Her accounts are abandoned, and she no longer responds to comments.

It takes Charlie all of five minutes to uncover her email address.

thefairysqueen: samlicker81?

becky77: i don’t talk about those books any more.

Well, that was encouraging.

thefairysqueen: i heard you were the person to go to about finding carver edlund.

becky77: i’m not that any more either.

becky77: no-one knows where he is.

thefairysqueen: but you used to know him?

becky77: as i said on the site, we dated. he asked me to post the rest of the books online. a week after we broke up i found swan song on my doorstep, and i haven’t heard from him since.

Well, that’s disappointing. But if the books are as true as Charlie hopes they are…

thefairysqueen: you’re becky, right? from sympathy for the devil? so, you met the winchesters?

becky77: i know the difference between fantasy and reality, if that’s what you’re asking.

Charlie bites her lip, and decides to take a risk.

thefairysqueen: was it fantasy or reality which saved my life from a leviathan last year?

Three seconds later, she has a new video call from becky77.

"Hi!" she waves at the camera. "Guess you decided to talk to me after all?"

"How do I know you’re for real?" Becky asks.

"Please don’t tell me I have to cut myself with silver," Charlie sighs. "How would you even know it was really silver?"

"You could draw a Devil’s trap…" Becky suggests, and Charlie jumps to her feet. It only takes a few seconds to retrieve her doormat and show Becky the Devil’s trap painted on the underside. She waves it over her head a few times.

"See! Not a demon! Now, are you going to…" She trails off midsentence when Becky starts unbuttoning her shirt. "Uh…"

Becky pulls her collar down, showing Charlie an anti-possession tattoo. “Me either. Now, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

Becky lets her shirt flap up again, but she doesn’t redo those top few buttons. Charlie forces her eyes back up to camera level. “I wanted to ask if you know anything about hunting. Or more… if you’d ever tried it.”

Becky frowns. “I never really… I mean, I’m not much of a hero. I just write about them. Or at least, I used to write about them.”

Charlie purses her lips. “If there’s one thing the Winchesters have taught me, it’s that everyone gets their chance to be a hero.”

Becky laughs bitterly. “And what if some of us had our chances, and we blew them?”

"Then you know better when the next one comes around." Charlie lets a grin spread itself slowly across her face, and she’s glad to see Becky returning it. "I’ve read all the books, but I’m no expert, and I found this pattern of weird -"

"Send me the file?" Becky blurts out, then looks embarassed for being so eager.

Charlie beams. “Of course.”


End file.
